Within the next few weeks the U.S Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will decide whether to invoke new rules regarding the ability of hotels to block customer Wifi hotspots within their premises.
The hotel Marriott International tried to block Wifi hotspots within their premises before only to find themselves with a $600,000 (£386,666) fine. This company in partnership with Ryman Hospitality Properties and The American Hotel and Lodging Association recently requested clarification on whether hotels should be allowed to carry out this type of blocking within their premises in order to ‘protect their internal Wifi services’ from the FCC.
The petition requested that the FCC “declare that the operator of a Wifi network does not violate [U.S. law] by using FCC-authorized equipment to monitor and mitigate threats to the security and reliability of its network,” even if the actions can interfere with the working of mobile devices nearby. Last Friday (19th December 2014), the FCC closed the comment period for the petition, meaning that it is not solely up to the FCC whether to agree or disagree.
As mentioned above, the Marriott has tried this tactic before, despite its illegality, causing the FCC to fine them after complaints about the practice came in. The complaint stated that the hotel used the signal blocking features of a Wifi monitoring system that stopped their customers from connecting to other Wifi sources. The hotel charged, for their own Wifi, a fee of $250 (£161) to $1,000 (£644) per device.
Many people appealed to the FCC during the comment period asking them to deny the hotels petition. In October the FCC released a statement stating that it is illegal to block outside Wifi hotspots. Google, in a comment written by their lawyers, said that “While Google recognizes the importance of leaving operators flexibility to manage their own networks, this does not include intentionally blocking access to other commission-authorized networks, particularly where the purpose or effect of that interference is to drive traffic to the interfering operator’s own network,”
Many companies and people including the mobile trade group CTIA and Microsoft urged the FCC to reject the petition. However, Marriott argued, saying that the blocking is justified as long as the means in which they doing it are not illegal. They continued saying that the hotspots could be used to “launch an attack against [a hotel] operator’s network or threaten its guests’ privacy” possibly by getting access to personal data including credit card numbers. Also in the petition they said that many Wifi Hotspots operating around or in a hotel can damage the overall performance of the hotels own network.
The group has gained support from Cisco Systems, who produce networking software, who said that “Unlicensed spectrum generally should be open and available to all who wish to make use of it, but access to unlicensed spectrum resources can and should be balanced against the need to protect networks, data and devices from security threats and potentially other limited network management concerns,” written by Mary Brown their director of government affairs. They say that the hotspots should be allowed in public places, but the “balance shifts in enterprise locations, where many entities use their Wifi networks to convey company confidential information [and] trade secrets,” she concluded.
Vitinethic 